Today, audio conference calls are a staple of business. Conference calls allow groups of people at different locations to easily communicate with each other. In a typical conference call, different users will call in to discuss different subjects. The more people that are on the conference call, the more likely that different types of disruptions to the conference call will occur.
For instance, different people may multi-task during the conference call during specific sections of the conference call that are not as interesting. This leads to the situation where someone, for example, may be typing during the conference call and all the other persons on the call get to hear the person type. Someone will typically disrupt the conference call and ask the person who is typing to stop typing or to press the mute button so that the rest of the participants don't have to listen to the typing.
Another problem is where someone is on the conference call and receives another, more important call. The person places the conference call on hold and takes the more important call. If the person who placed the conference call has music-on-hold, then the rest of the conference call participants now have the privilege of listening to music-on-hold. This is not only very disruptive to the conference, but also if you try and ask the person to go off hold, they will not be able to hear you because they have placed the conference call on hold.
Other disruptions include where echo and/or bad connections cause a speaker's signal to break up, causing other people on the conference call to ask them to repeat what they said. In these situations, the person may have to drop from the conference call and redial in order to get a better connection. What is needed is a better way to identify the source of various disruptions and provide feedback to specific users of the conference call without disrupting the conference call.